hey guys, i just started reading it and it seems pretty damn good. are there any opinions on it here? i'm just learning and trying to improve my writing. thanks guys
If you want to know how to write well, don't read books that try to tell you one person's opinion. Just read good books, and lots of them! Read a few bad ones, too, and ask yourself why they are so bad. You'll learn more that way, and you won't be as influenced by the bad advice or personal preferences that fill such books.
alright, thanks mate. just seems like a much slower process. what books would you recommend that teach good writing?
There are no shortcuts. There are important references every writer should have: one or more good dictionaries, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, a good grammar and punctuation guide (I like both The Little, Brown Handbook and The Chicago Manual of Style), and a good thesaurus (but only to refresh your memory for words you already know!). I would also add The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations and the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, but google is adequate as well. You must become adept at online research in any case - not only how to find information, but how to evaluate its reliability. And you really must read literature. Not only classics, but contemporary writing as well. Writing standards do change over time, and you need to be aware of that flow.
It is slow, but fun, too. Read the short fiction in The New Yorker. It's a good way to read many different styles. Even better, The New Yorker puts the stories on its website for free!
